Cerulean Blue (PB36) is a color that I like but I don’t often find room for it on my palette. It’s a nice gray mixer with earths, but other blues do that too. “Cerulean” means “sky,” and the light blue color implies usefulness in skies, but I don’t generally like that much granulation in the sky. So, as is my custom with paints that I’m on the fence about, I decided to see how hard it would be to mix a hue.
On the page above, the top left color is Da Vinci Cerulean Blue Genuine (PB36), the color we are trying to match, and the rows below are mixing attempts.
I focused on mixes with at least one granulating pigment to try to get some granulation in the mixes and most closely emulate genuine Cerulean Blue. I actually think these are all pretty good!
Top Row
DV Cobalt Blue (PB28) + SH Cobalt Turquoise (PG50)
I found this mix very similar to genuine Cerulean, but even a little brighter/higher chroma, so I actually kind of like the hue more! I used versions of PB28 and PG50 that granulate less than my version of PB36, so the overall granulation is a bit less, but exact hue and granulation would vary by the brand of components you used.
The mix of Cobalt Blue with PG50 turquoise is one of Bruce MacEvoy‘s two suggested substitutions for Cerulean, the other being Ultramarine Blue (PB29) and Phthalo Green (PG7), which I do later down the page, and which is also similar to the next option:
DV Ultramarine Blue (PB29) + DS Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG36)
The mix of Ultramarine Blue with Phthalo Green Yellow Shade is off-by-one from the Bruce MacEvoy’s recommended mix involving Ultramarine and Phthalo Green Blue Shade. Yellow Shade is, of course, the yellower of these two Phthalo Greens, and so the mix with violet-toned Ultramarine Blue is a bit grayed. This is actually slightly lower chroma than my Cerulean, but it looks similar to some more muted Ceruleans, such as DS Cerulean Chromium. The Ultramarine gives it adequate granulation.
DV Ultramarine Blue (PB29) + DV Manganese Blue Mix (PB15, PB33)
Here I mixed the Ultramarine with DV Manganese Blue Mix (PB15, PB33), a granulating light blue mix that is similar on its own to Cerulean Blue. MBM is a bit higher-chroma and greener-toned than Cerulean, so I added Ultramarine to balance it. It’s also quite successful, though I’m not sure it’s practical, since it relies on you having an uncommon color. I think it would be easier to just have Cerulean.
Bottom Row
DV Ultramarine Blue (PB29) + SH Cobalt Turquoise (PG50)
Similar to the Cobalt Blue + Cobalt Turquoise mix above it; Ultramarine is just a bit darker and more violet-toned than the Cobalt Blue. This mix is more granulating than the Cobalt Blue mix, a bit high chroma, and a closer to a middle blue. I do think this is a good mix for a really bright blue granulating sky, but I think in terms of getting close to Cerulean, it’s not quite as good as the Cobalt Blue and PG50 mix.
DV Ultramarine Blue (PB29) + DS Phthalo Green Blue Shade (PG7)
You have to hand it to Bruce MacEvoy: this is also a very good mix. Noticeably higher-chroma than the PG36 mix above, and very similar in hue to genuine Cerulean Blue. Granulation from Ultramarine Blue floats a bit so the mix is granulating, but not in the same way that Cerulean Blue is exactly.
DV Cobalt Blue (PB28) + DS Phthalo Green Blue Shade (PG7)
Since the PG7 mix was really successful, I thought I would try swapping in Cobalt Blue for the Ultramarine. As you might predict given the relative qualities of UMB and Cobalt Blue, this mix is greener-toned, higher-chroma, and less granulating. I really like it as well, although it is a bit higher chroma than genuine Cerulean and perhaps slightly on the green side for most skies.
Conclusion
Everything I tried was really good and I could see them all working in a sky. In terms of being similar to Cerulean Blue, I think the best mixes were exactly as Bruce MacEvoy said: Cobalt Blue + Cobalt Turquoise, or Ultramarine Blue + Phthalo Green BS. My favorite mixes were those with Cobalt Blue, as they are a bit brighter and it is my opinion that Cobalt Blue has a magical quality.
Comments
6 responses to “Mix Your Own Cerulean Blue Lookalike”
HOLD UP “cerulean” means “sky”? So “cerulean skies” just means “sky-colored sky”? This is the biggest scandal since chai tea
Okay, it turns out it isn’t that simple, but I was ALMOST right. According to Merriam-Webster:
cerulean comes from the Latin adjective caeruleus, meaning “dark blue.” That word most likely comes from caelum, meaning “sky.”
This totally shoots down my issue with the naming of the cerulean blue warbler, which is dark blue, nit what I’ve always known as cerulean.
Btw, comparisons with PB35 may work out the same way. PB29+PG50 or PB28+PG50 are good replacements and provide the opportunity for variation that occurs naturally in the sky. I can’t seem to detach completely from PB35, though. I just like it…
You don’t have to! When I try to find mixes it’s out of a sense that no color is indispensable, but I do still use many of the ones I know how to duplicate pretty well. I have Cerulean Blue in my sketching palette right now! For one thing, I think I like its granulation better than ultramarine blue’s.
Wanted to add one advantage of the mixes that use a warm and a cool blue: they make creating subtle zenith-to-horizon shifts very easy and natural.
I mean, maybe the green mixes would work too, but the phthalos are so different in properties that the shift might look distracting.
Yes, I was surprised to like the green mixes, but it’s weirder if the components separate.